Jar of Hearts
by Spanish Sunrise
Summary: His perfection hurt her, just like it hurt to look in the mirror. It hurt how he would flick lit cigarette butts at her when she would pass by. It hurt how he would never see anything but a sad crippled little freak. He was murdering her, yet she love him


**Tired of all those 'Ace and a Mary Sue' fanfics.**

**Please review if you think I should continue. :)**

She had nothing, yet she had everything. She was rich, yet she was poor. She was ugly, yet she was beautiful.

Dear God it hurt waking up in the morning. It hurt having the beautiful morning sun blind her eyes. It hurt to look in the mirror, once again outlining her features, reminding her that she was no super model. It hurt how the whispered behind her back. How she faked smiles in return to their artificial concerns. No one knew that when she grinned back in response to their 'good mornings' in reality she felt like crying.

It hurt how she could not spend one peaceful, blessed day without running into him. His perfection hurt her. It hurt how he smirked at her, his arm wrapped around his long-legged princess of a girlfriend. It hurt how he would flick lit cigarette butts at her when she would pass by. It hurt to bite her much-abused lip every day, shaken by their cruelty, walking forward in desperate attempt to drown out their high peals of laughter.

He would never see her the way he saw those beautiful women hanging on his arm, the women he so carelessly replaced like worn-out sneakers.

It hurt how much she loved him.

Mary sat up in her bed, none too eager to begin another horrifying day.

The glasses

The braces.

The skinniness.

The _limp_.

It did nothing to stop the churning in her stomach.

She was abused by the students at her old school, they called her names, 'Crippled' being the favorite of their many choices. They were not original; 'Braceface', 'Four-eyes', 'Toothpick', but they never seemed to realize how much it wounded her. They never realized what it was for her to wake up each morning, feeling like a Union soldier preparing for another day at a battlefield, a battle she knew she would not survive.

Mary stood in front of the mirror, not breaking her gaze with her reflection. Slowly, she pulled on a bulky, ratty old sweater over her head, to hide her pathetic skinniness. Though she was seventeen, she possessed none of the delicious curves that people like Ace whistled at when they strutted across the scene. Mary, in essence, was a toothpick. The tattered red sweater was long enough to cover her almost non-existent butt, this was good.

Her family left their house in sunny, crowded San Diego, California to drive up to tiny Castle Rock, Oregon for the summer, as her psychiatrist suggested. Mary found the striking change slightly amusing, as she pulled on a pair of fuzzy boots, one heal slightly taller than the other, to somehow help stabilize her limp. It was so loud in San Diego, something always happening no matter what time of day. Here, in Castle Rock, a quiet town with barely any people, Mary thought that she finally had found peace.

No one will bother her in this town that wasn't even on the maps.

No one would notice if she felt like taking a walk.

No one would stare.

No one would care.

Mary was wrong, ever since she first stepped on to main street, gossip had hung over her like a dark cloud. The group over which _he_ruled, the Cobras, and their numerous (sexy much?) girlfriends, made it worse for her. The first day that she saw his beautiful face, she felt as if she was gazing up at a perfect blonde angel. Until that angel blew thick black smoke in her face, and flung the ashes from his cigarette in her direction, as if she was a human ashtray, smirking as his henchmen laughed loudly at his hideous joke.

She cried for hours that day.

She was only a broken, sad little person.

And he was a giant, a Julius Ceaser stomping on whomever he pleased.

She refused to tell her worrying parents. They had enough on their hands already, trying to save up for that expensive, $20,000 dollar operation that would cure her limp. They've been saving for three years, and they've only had six.

Mary ran a brush through her straight dark brown hair, there was no point in putting it up in intricate fashions when know boy in their right mind would look at her anyway. She left her room, limping down the stairs. There was a plate of steaming muffins and a glass of orange juice waiting for her. Mary stopped on the bottom step and smiled.

Her mother loved to cook, and surprised Mary whenever she had time between work. She checked at the clock hanging on the apricot wall. 9:00. She had just missed them. There was a slip of paper written on with her mother's elegant cursive script. It was a shopping list. Her parents always made her get the groceries in hopes that she would find a friend in the town.

But she had only found more tormentors.

Mary never had any friends. Not since she had broken her leg when she was five years old. The cast was not set properly, causing the bone to grow askew, making her right leg about an inch shorter than her left. Only an operation could fix it, an operation her family could not afford. The children refused to play with a 'crippled' and there was a huge drop-off between them ever since.

So Mary dedicated her life to science. She was a geek, a nerd, a loser. Trapped in a library late on Saturday nights, reading history books on the Civil War, studying Greek mythology, Viking war methods, and much more. She was fascinated by the skeletal system, and U.S. history of the Victorian Era, her favorite about her home state, California, and the gold rush that started the abnormal population there.

Mary chewed slowly on a chocolate muffin, calculating how many hours were left until her much-hated braces would be removed. Three weeks was still a long time. She glanced at her cherry red swatch, deciding it was best to go get grocery's now instead of in the afternoon, when it would be swarming with the town's limited population, especially the Cobras, giving Ace another fascinating opportunity to break her fragile heart.

* * *

"Shit." Ace muttered, stomping on the discarded match that dared to burn his fingers. He stabbed the fresh cigarette back into his mouth. The Cobras were hanging around town, fucking up the kids, doing what they did best. There was another gang from the nice side of town, Castleview, where the Sharks resided. It surprised Ace that the rich pussies had balls enough to make their own gang. But if they set so much a toe on their turf, the Cobras were quick to take 'em out.

Eyeball leaned on the wall to his right, grinning at what he just did to his brother. The cigarette-to-an-eye thing could do wonders. The homos Charlie Hogan and Billy Tessio also leaned against the wall, smirking and chewing toothpicks, trying to act like Ace. Their slut girlfriends hanging on there every word. Eyeball lightly hit Ace on a muscled arm.

Ace quirked an angry eyebrow, looking annoyed."What?"

Eyeball nodded towards the street."Look, our very own source of entertainment limping down the street."

"Ooo Eyeball." Said his bitch named Clair, or was it Cassey? He didn't give a fuck."Is that the girl you told me about? The Cripple?" She asked.

"Sure is, honey." Out of the corner of his eye, Eyeball saw Ace smirk.

Ace's girlfriend Chloe took his cigarette out of his mouth, transporting it to her own."What the fuck, bitch!" Ace growled, ripping it out of her mouth and placing it back in his own.

Chloe pouted, but cleared it away because she knew Ace didn't like it. She smiled in what she thought was seductive."Speaking of fuck…" She purred. Ace looked away and grimaced.

"Relax you whore." He muttered, eyeing the limping girl.

Chloe's voice became high and screechy."What, you think she's better than me?" Ace would have dumped her right there, she was lucky she was such a good fuck.

Ace pushed her away."No." He replied, surprising her. She ran a hand up his arm, and then released him.

"Hey Ace!" Eyeball shouted, loudly enough for the crippled to hear."Why don't you ask her out to the dance? You can be Beauty, and she be the Beast."

The Cobras erupted in a volcano of laughter, burying the girl with their ugly lava.

She looked down at her shoes, her cheeks turning a cherry shade of red, limping faster in the direction of the general store. Eyeball jabbed Ace in the arm."Yo, go stop her, go."

No body told Ace what to do.

But the Cobras began to chant, and he let it go."Get her. Get her. Get her."

Ace's mouth twisted into a nonchalant smirk, and he followed her.

* * *

Mary felt stupid, like the biggest fool in the world. So much for not running in to her beloved ghost. Her face burned as they laughed at her. The Beast comment, though she agreed with him, stung beyond words. She felt like crying. She walked faster, wincing at the extra effort put on her right foot. He burned her with those cruel, torturous eyes, his beautiful mouth, which should always be smiling, stabbed her with a laughing smirk.

She rushed faster towards the store, hoping to get into its walls of painless safety. Just a few feet now, come on Marty, keep walking.

She reached out to grab the handle of the door, pulling it open. But another stronger hand slammed it back shut.

He was leaning over her, Ace, the blonde angel, still smirking.

She was amazed with his lightning speed ability to ghost to her.

She swallowed hard in fear, as his blazing blue eyes, like fire on water, burned through her.

"Hello." He growled. He didn't say it like a greeting.

He said it like a threat.

**Thanks for reading.**

**Merry Christmas!**

**Please review. **


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